


Never Count The Cost

by tielan



Series: Collar and Cuff [1]
Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Slavery, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-06
Updated: 2019-09-06
Packaged: 2020-10-11 02:50:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20538917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/pseuds/tielan
Summary: Not all stories happen the way they're told.





	Never Count The Cost

**Author's Note:**

> An 'indentured slavery' AU that I started...oh, back in 2014, and never completed. It had a plot and everything...

Raleigh Becket doesn’t look like trouble when Herc first shakes his hand in the Hong Kong Shatterdome.

It’s not until after Chuck’s done his little dominance-display in the mess hall and sauntered off with Max at his heels that Herc has his first inkling of the kind of trouble Raleigh Becket is going to cause.

“What’s a freeman like Miss Mori doing here, working for the PPDC?”

“Trying to hold off the end of the world. Same as the rest of us.”

“She’s freeborn, isn’t she?” When Herc gives him a frowning look, Becket stares back. “She doesn’t have neck scars - she’s never worn a collar. So what’s her story?”

Herc thinks about all the ways this could go. None of them are good.

“Mate.” He waits until Becket has turned to look at him. “Don’t go there. Just, don’t.”

Becket looks down at his dinner, and Herc knows the warning won’t be heeded. But he had to try - for Mako, for Stacker, and, yeah, for Becket’s own sake.

Herc’s been there, and done that.

He knows there’s no way for this to end well.

* * *

There’s a story. You’ve probably heard it before.

Boy meets girl, boy falls in love with girl and she falls in love with him. They can’t be together, for reasons of society, family, rank, or politics, so they run away to find somewhere where they can be together and happy. And they live happily ever after.

Only not all stories happen the way they tell them.

* * *

Herc Hansen gets the notice that he’s been freed four days after his twenty-third birthday.

At first he thinks it’s one of Scott’s pranks, but the holographic letterhead is beyond the ability of Scott and any of his friends to reproduce. And this isn’t a fucking joke.

_…present yourself at the nearest Australian Office of Indenture for the removal of your collar and your freedman induction in the next six weeks…_

He can’t keep his feet - the world is spinning slowly, gently around him. When it stops, he’s sitting on the locker room floor with his back up against the nearest pillar, the letter half-crumpled in his hand.

Another look shows the words haven’t vanished, the notice hasn’t changed.

Herc smooths the letter out on his thigh and tries to think. There’s a Collar Authority out at Blacktown, but he wouldn’t be able to get out there until Friday night and on Friday, he was planning to–

_No_. Pain is unexpected - as unexpected as his freedom_. Oh, Jesus, no…_

* * *

What is the cost of a human life?

According to the Global Authority of Indentured Persons, many factors contribute to the accumulated worth of an indenture. All men may be created equal, but their worth is not the same, given their location, age, life expectancy, and skill level. Within Australia - and in many other countries around the world - careful calculations have been set up to determine the net worth of any given collarborn.

In the case of Herc Hansen, given his physical genotype, his intellectual capabilities, and his emotional capacity, his net worth - that is, his full freedom, not just the tenure of his indenture - is calculated at $4.76 million Australian dollars, excluding GST, in the year 2003 CE.

Including GST, Hercules Hansen’s freedom costs around $5.5mil.

Herc only knows one person with that kind of money.

What he doesn’t know is _why_.


End file.
